Professor Shabaz Mohammed

Associate Professor of Proteomics
Departments of Chemistry and Biochemistry | University of Oxford
New Biochemistry building, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QU

Biography

Shabaz studied Chemistry at UMIST (now The University of Manchester) and obtained his degree in 1999. He then went on to work in the laboratory of Simon Gaskell within the field of biological mass spectrometry albeit the more fundamental side of the topic and defended in early 2003. He then moved to Odense (Denmark) and joined the group of Ole Jensen and worked on technology development for use in studying post-translation modifications. Here, he helped develop a method that allowed quantitative analysis of phosphorylation and its role in cellular signalling, a widely adopted method. In 2005, he moved to the laboratory of Albert Heck and continued working in the field of proteomic technologies. In 2008, he became an Assistant Professor and started his own group. In 2013, he (once again) moved and is now an Associate Professor of Proteomics in the Departments of Chemistry and Biochemistry. He also maintains a ‘guest’ lecturer status at Utrecht University.

Research

Proteins are central to many essential molecular processes in living cells. They perform functions through interactions in a highly dynamic environment with each other and with other types of molecules including sugars, lipids and nucleic acids. In recent years, characterisation of proteins has accelerated dramatically, driven by the completion of many genomes and the constant evolution of mass spectrometry. The genome contains information relating to all possible proteins that can be present in the cell and thus this extractable data represents an invaluable repository of knowledge for protein identification. Equally significant was the realisation that mass spectrometry represents an almost ideal tool for protein sequencing. However, the composition of proteins present in a cell is only one determinant of function. Both protein expression levels and subtle biochemical changes to protein structure, in the form of post-translational modifications (PTM), dynamically influence cellular processes. PTM of proteins is nature’s way to regulate protein function, their interactions and sub-cellular localisation. Furthermore, proteins involved in regulation are becoming major drug targets for a wide variety of diseases. Therefore, the accurate measurement of protein expression and modification is essential to understanding the underlying biomolecular determinants of cellular signaling.